However, Kenya’s external debt has steadily increased since 2000 and began rising sharply in 2014, the year after incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta took office.

By contrast, the World Bank is owed over 27 percent of Kenya’s external debt. China is Kenya’s bilateral creditor with 67% of its bilateral debt, though it holds only 19 percent of Kenya’s total external debt, which also includes multilateral and commercial debt. The International Monetary Fund announced this year that Kenya is at high risk of debt distress. “If the Chinese offer better terms and also better prices for the goods and services that we want, we will continue to deal with the Chinese,” he said. Some loans could be converted so they had longer repayment periods and lower interest rates to release money for new development projects, he suggested. Odinga said he intended to renegotiate loans with some creditors, including China, if he won.

Odinga, who is making his fifth attempt to be elected president, has focused on Chinese loans to Kenya, which have risen from $4.1bn to $6.4bn over the past five years, according to official numbers. “Politicians leverage anything they can blame, and I think for the deputy president, China has become a very easy target.” Īs Andres Schipani reported for The Financial Times, while Odinga’s rhetoric on China is less aggressive than Ruto’s, he nonetheless intends to renegotiate Chinese loans : “Kenya is currently experiencing a lot of economic difficulties and there’s been this narrative about the role of China, especially in regard to this debt trap narrative,” told VOA. Ruto said he would cut government borrowing and promised to make public opaque contracts with China - something some Kenyan activists have even gone to court over. We will deport all of them,” Agence France-Presse reported. He’s vowed to deport Chinese nationals doing jobs he says should be reserved for Kenyans and has also promised to make public government contracts with Beijing.Īt an economic forum in June, Ruto said, “Chinese nationals are roasting maize and selling mobile phones. Kate Bartlett from VOA described Ruto’s anti-China platform that includes deporting Chinese nationals who take Kenyans’ jobs :ĭeputy President William Ruto, a former chicken-seller who styles himself as a champion of the poor and calls himself the “hustler-in-chief,” has come out with a strongly anti-China platform.

This election saga highlights the political consequences of China’s international debt crisis and China’s efforts to soften its image via local media. The two main candidates, former deputy president William Ruto and former prime minister Raila Odinga, each repeatedly laid out their plans to take a stronger stance towards China, which holds a substantial portion of Kenya’s external debt. Votes are currently being tallied for Tuesday’s presidential election in Kenya, in which relations with China comprised a major campaign theme.

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